Conviction New Age and human-potential movements Albany, Auckland, New Zealand · 1992

Bert Potter: 13 convictions for abuse framed as therapy and spiritual advancement at Centrepoint

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

founder and spiritual leader, therapist and guru

Organization

Centrepoint Community Growth Trust

Spiritual nexus

The cited record identifies spiritual-enlightenment framing, therapeutic pretext, communal pressure, and leader control as the material spiritual doctrine, practice, authority, or pretext connected to the documented harm. The relevant authority role is founder and spiritual leader and therapist and guru.

Guru or spiritual-teacher authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

1992-11-28 · criminal trial and sentence

High Court of New Zealand. A jury convicted Potter on 13 indecent-assault charges; he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Documented coercion mechanisms

spiritual-enlightenment framing
therapeutic pretext
communal pressure
leader control

Primary record

Sources

official government biography government biography Tim Shoebridge, ‘Potter, Herbert Thomas,’ Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (2024).: The government biography records Potter’s role as Centrepoint’s Spiritual Leader, the group’s coercive therapeutic culture, testimony that he presented abuse as therapy or a path to spiritual enlightenment, the 13 guilty verdicts, and the seven-and-a-half-year sentence.
statutory regulator administrative decision New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority, Kozeluh and Television New Zealand Ltd, Decision No. 2010-054 (Nov. 11, 2010).: The statutory regulator’s decision records Potter’s imprisonment for indecent assaults against minors, confirms that seven other people were convicted of separate assaults, and rejects an accuracy challenge to describing Potter as Centrepoint’s cult leader.

Related record

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